


Blurred Lines

by Mayth



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Canon Universe, M/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:27:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21575251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mayth/pseuds/Mayth
Summary: Thirty-one October, 1981. The war is over. But for Remus Lupin the world seems to be falling apart.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Kudos: 3





	Blurred Lines

**Author's Note:**

> Remus and Sirius relationship could be read as only friendship, even if in my mind they are in love. 
> 
> I’m not a native english speaker, so if you have any suggestions, please write them in your comments. 
> 
> This fic takes place after the first war with Voldemort.

Remus knows the exact moment when Voldemort fails on his mission. 

He knows it, despite the fact that he is currently struggling with a Death Eater in an abandoned house to the west of Scotland. He knows because when Voldemort throws his Avada Kedavra, killing Lily, something inside him breaks.   
Perhaps _this_ is real magic — an incorporeal connection between people, wich when dissolved leaves an almost imperceptible trace but that surely was there. Weak and tenuous. Leaving him confused and totally, completely powerless. 

The feeling is heightened by the spell that hits him on the shoulder a few seconds later, causing him to stragger and fall on the dusty floor. The pain that follows is a spasm that runs all over his body and immobilises him. He has time to throw a single stupeficium before exhaling what he thinks must be his last breath and falling victim to the darkness. 

The last thing he thinks about is his friends. 

*

The awakening is slow. His conscience comes and goes, with flashes of sensations that are mostly painful. Remus knows what it means to have no control over the body, yet he can't even open his eyes and understand what's going on. Around him there is nothingness; sometimes he thinks he hears voices — and the echo of his name — and others he has the impression of hearing Sirius' laughter at the back of the room, but he's not sure if it’s reality or if it’s only a hallucination. When he finally wakes up from his sleep, he finds himself lying in bed in a room he doesn't recognize. Five or six candles float in the air and light up the walls slightly: it's night and the moon, from beyond the window glass, observes him with a certain amount of complacency.

He tries to move, but every muscle in his body rebels and his head is dizzy, causing him a conato of vomit that he barely suppresses. He ends up lying down again with his head sunk in a pillow that is too soft. Then the door creaks and opens enough to let a witch with a slender body but a severe look pass by. Remus recognizes her by the large green emeralds hanging from her earlobes.

“Emmeline Vance,” he cawed, and the wrinkled — and weak — tone of his voice frightens him a little.

“I thought I heard the bed creaking. It’s about time.” The witch goes forward, in her right hand she holds a glass that she places on the bedside table next to the bed. Then she takes her wand off a sleeve and waving it slightly fills the glass with water. Remus tries to raise his arm, but a sharp cramp at the base of his neck makes him give up, at the same time he feels his throat inflamed and his head throbbing. The witch sighs and then places the glass on Remus’ dry lips, allowing him to ease the pain moderately.  
“You need to avoid moving, okay? You have been struck by a powerful spell, it will take a few days before Boartusk's concoctions take effect. Fortunately, the fever seems almost completely over,” she nods to herself, placing a hand on his forehead.

“What,” says Remus exhaustedly, coughing up before completing, “What happened?”

“Don't you remember?” Vance is wrinkling her forehead.

“It's just... a little confusing.”

“You were looking for a death eater hideout near Fort William. The last message you sent said that you had found it, but then we had no more news. When Sturgis Podmore entered that house and saw two bodies on the ground, he thought you had killed each other, but apparently you managed to kill him before you fainted. You got lucky, Lupin.” A smile, even if small, suddenly transforms her face, rejuvenating it.  
Remus stares at her, trying to tidy up all the informations and remember exactly what had happened, but he's too tired and sore to do anything but file it for later. He confusedly remembers entering the villa and finding it abandoned for at least two weeks, then he heard a noise and cautiously went along the corridor leading to the living room. There he had been taken by surprise by a Death Eater, but the battle is a sooty memory that he cannot give shape to. He also remembers thinking he was going to die.

Emmeline tells him to rest and heads slowly towards the exit, extinguishing two candles as she passes. When he sees her reaching the handle, Remus raises his voice a little and says, "Wait!", immobilizing her. "I think there's the possibility of other probable hiding places not far from that one. I should get in touch with someone, maybe Sirius."

The witch turns around again and looks at him with eyes wide open like an owl in the dark. “Oh, sugar,” she says in a mellifluous voice, “don't worry about it. In fact, there's someone who'd like to talk to you, but you should get well first.” And she closes the door behind her.

*

Remus realizes he's been unconscious for two whole days. On his second awakening, the sun rises high in the sky and the pain caused by the jinx seems to have subsided so much that it can be ignored. He takes off the three blankets and, when he sits down, sips some more water. He feels tired and exhausted. Too exhausted, perhaps, to be a simple side effect of a charm that fortunately has barely touched him. He is tired because the full moon had taken place just five days before. And the weeks before and after that always leave him weak, fragile and vulnerable. It was not a brilliant idea to venture into a mission of the Order immediately after the Beast had arrived, but Remus hates his own futility. The fact that he can't have a job and that he has to survive only because of the money offered by James makes him want to break something and scream, to give life to the real monster that constantly scratches from under his chest and asks to be released. The only way to return the favor and value his own existence is to work for the Order and try to eradicate the Death Eaters. 

Being almost dead makes him even more irritated.

Slowly, he gets up off the mattress. A thrill runs through his spine and Remus begins to tremble from head to toe. He takes a look at the room: it is small, with rock walls and creaking wooden floor, it has just enough space to accommodate a single bed and a fireplace crammed in the left corner. Outside the window, the landscape shows only a heath of crystallized grass that extends to the horizon. Remus is certain now that he has never been to such a refuge and imagines that he is still in Scotland.

The house has a strange atmosphere, sometimes he thinks he hears voices downstairs, but they are always hasty and the only words he can intercept are strictly about information for the Order. War does this. It’s difficult to smile and chat with another wizard when people out there continue to die. Remus, perhaps more than anyone, knows that.

He approaches a basket of wood, limping with his right leg, and takes a few logs to throw into the mouth of the fireplace. Then he touches the pockets of his trousers, finding his wand there, and with a single twitch of his wrist he lights a fire that immediately heats the room. His shadow extends behind him until it reaches the corner of a blanket slipped from the bed.

When he turns around the figure of Albus Dumbledore is next to the window, half his face is in the shade and a tapered finger runs in the wake of a drop of condensation on the glass. The light reflected on his face accentuates the wrinkles that dig his skin, perhaps showing for the first time the true age he keeps on his shoulders. His eyes are shiny and from that position they look like a cold glaucoma that observes him from the semi-darkness.   
He is not really surprised to see him there; after all, the first time he had made his acquaintance, he had appeared out of nowhere with a pop sound and asked him in a half smile if he wanted to play a game of gobstones. Remus had never played with anyone except with his father and sometimes, in the good days, with his mother, and so he had been more than enthusiastic to accept the challenge. Then, still with the same tonality of serene and staid voice, before his parents appeared on the threshold of the living room with a ridiculous expression painted on their face, he asked him: “Would you like to go to school with all the other children of your age?”

Dumbledore had changed his life. 

In silence, Remus takes a few steps forward and rests a hand on the headboard to be able to stand up and keep his balance. He should have imagined that the person who wanted to talk to him was Dumbledore. Whenever he had a problem integrating — both in society and at Hogwarts — Dumbledore had come forward with a suggestion. In recent weeks the wizards had learned that the werewolves had decided to adhere to the cause of the Dark Lord, persuaded by the wealth that the magical society would never have allowed to people like them. The suspect had grown so much in the Order that even Sirius had advised him to leave. Thus he had isolated himself in the north.

Dumbledore pulls his finger from the window and clasps his hands in front of his belly. He is wearing a long purple dress with a composition of silver shapes embroidered on it. The half-moon glasses hang wobbly at the tip of the long aquiline nose, giving him the image of a likeable veteran. A moment later and his calm and peaceful voice fills the room. “I believe there will be a very harsh winter this year.”

Remus tilts his head slightly to one side, simulating assent. 

“These days have been particularly dark, don't you think, Remus?”

“The temperature must have dropped several degrees,” he nods.

Dumbledore sighs and only now does Remus realize that he looks much thinner than he remembered, and his cheeks seem to be hollowed out under his beard, but his eyes shine full of something that Remus still fails to grasp. 

“Where are we exactly?” he asks then, when the silence seems to continue for too many seconds to still be comfortable.

Dumbledore turns his gaze towards the morning behind the blinds and watches a sparrow peck at the wood on the windowsill. “Not far from where they found you injured,” he replies with a slow calculation. “It's an old Muggle house that the Order of the Phoenix borrowed no more than two months ago. It's still very dusty, I see,” he notes, rubbing a fingertip over the aged surface of the window frame. “Ah, in these cases we would need Molly Weasly. Her hands are golden.”

Remus continues to study the man in silence, while Dumbledore takes a few steps to the side and looks around as if he should choose whether or not to stay here for the Christmas holidays. Remus is not bothered, but the possibility that Dumbledore is stalling creates an annoying knot in his stomach and his heart starts beating so fast that Remus is surprised that the sound does not echo between the walls. He still doesn't say anything, but he jerks when a jab of pain crosses his skull. 

Dumbledore raises an eyebrow. “You're recovering very slowly.”

“Fortunately, I was not hit in the chest,” he comments in a pathetic response. Dumbledore inclines his head, contracting his lips and approaching the bed a few steps. So closely, Remus perceives, despite the past years, still a reverent awe. 

“I-”

“You're wondering why I'm here,” the other interrupts, raising a palm to ask him to keep quiet and wait for him to finish. “I'm not here for what happened to you, although I'm glad you didn't die, Remus. And I am not here to make you desist from your choice to isolate yourself. No, I have another news to report to you,” then Dumbledore's eyes become serious and a dark area falls on his face, it makes his look sad. The shadow behind him is projected onto all three walls and irrationally Remus feels trapped, with no escape, his heart now trapped straight down his throat. 

“What's happened?” he asks with a whisp of voice. 

Dumbledore looks him straight in the eye, never looking away, and setting a gentle voice he says: “Voldemort has disappeared. The war has ceased.”

“It's… over?”

“Just what I said. The Order is still working tirelessly to bring the worst Death Eaters to justice, but I have to say that the most diverse celebrations have been unleashed all over the country. In Cork, for example, Muriel Hickories blew up a mill in the name of-” 

“How?" he interrupts without regard, perhaps for the first time in his life. But his head is spinning and if the news was so good why no one had warned him before? Why is he locked up in a damp room and nobody has thought of climbing the stairs and revealing such vital information to him? 

“Emmeline Vance-” 

“I asked her not to tell you anything, so don't blame poor Emmeline.” 

“Why?”

“I think it's better if you sit down, Remus. And I insist.”

He hesitates only a fraction of a second before giving in under the stern gaze of the headmaster of Hogwarts and doing as he was told. Dumbledore positioned himself in front of him, covering the view on the fireplace and towering over the entire room. 

“The night between the thirty-first of October and the first of November Lord Voldemort headed to Godrick's Hollow. Now, you are not aware of the circumstances, Remus, because it was more than vital that as few people as possible were aware of it. But you just need to know about the existence of a prophecy and that this prophecy was about James and Lily directly. In such a situation, I advised them to resort to a secret caretaker who kept the location of their home hidden. You already understand, I suppose, that they chose Godrick's Hollow. And as for the caretaker... we had agreed that it was Sirius, of course.” 

“But if Voldemort went there…”

“Exactly.”

Silence falls in the room. Remus shakes his head, staring at a corner of a patchwork blanket. He feels his head full of confused thoughts and at the same time completely emptied, leaving room only for a whirlwind of feelings that he cannot grasp the essence of. Then, Dumbledore's words begin to whirl in his head like a nursery rhyme which, repeated too many times, becomes unbearable and loses its sense of existence. The air becomes thick and Remus has the feeling of being simultaneously inside and outside of himself, trapped between the stone of that house and the figure of Dumbledore. He notices that he is trembling only when a hand rests on his shoulder and stabilizes him. If he had been standing, he would have tumbled to the ground. The beginning of a panic attack is unmistakable, but he manages to dampen it by focusing on his own breathing, just as his father had taught him several years ago. He sees the features of Dumbledore's face soften. He can't stand him, the unspoken between them is too big. If Voldemort knew of Godrick’s Hollow, then the secret keeper must have spoken, or the Dark Lord must have found a way to neutralize the spell. In both cases... 

“But he's dead,” he says in a croaking voice. “So Lily and James…”

He feels Dumbledore's hand squeeze his shoulder before he withdraws. He manages to anticipate the answer even before it happens. 

“Lily and James gave their lives to fight Lord Voldemort,” Dumbledore confirms. “And in doing so they ended the war.”

Despite imagining it, the air leaves his lungs with a numbing rush. Remus stiffens. In a whisper he says “And Sirius?” but for some reason he feels dirty asking for it. Because it's obvious, although it can't be obvious. The answer gives meaning to what happened, but not to the reality that Remus knows. How does something make sense and not make sense at the same time? Yet Dumbledore is explaining it right now, and Remus can't hear it. The words go around him, yet he doesn't want to grasp their meaning. 

_Sirius Black has disappeared. The whole wizarding world is looking for him right now. Even the Muggle authorities have been warned. You will understand, son, that this is a very delicate issue. It is not possible to break the power of the Fidelius Charm, I can assure you that not even Voldemort would be able to._

Only the secret keeper could have revealed the location of Lily and James. 

The shock expands through his body. The situation is making him sweat and he feels sick. Suddenly, all the nausea that had dissipated from his first awakening comes up in his throat. 

“I would like to be alone,” he pleads. He sees with the corner of his eye the other nodding and, although just a little, he feels a reverberation of gratitude towards him, for not wanting to stay to console him and pretend to understand. 

Remus hears Dumbledore's footsteps the next moment, but the noise hesitates at the door. “Remus,” Dumbledore says in a heavy voice. “You will be pleased to know that the little Harry Potter survived the killing curse. He was taken to safety by his maternal uncles.” Then he leaves the room. 

The sound of the lock echoes between the walls.


End file.
